Revealed: the real reason for Gaddafi's WMD surrender

By Julian Coman and Colin Brown

12:01AM GMT 21 Dec 2003

Libya's promise to surrender its weapons of mass destruction was forced by Britain and America's seizure of physical evidence of Col Muammar Gaddafi's illegal weapons programme, the Telegraph can reveal.

United States officials say that America's hand was strengthened in negotiations with Col Gaddafi after a successful operation, previously undisclosed, to intercept transport suspected of carrying banned weapons.

The operation is said to have been carried out under the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), an international, American-led scheme to halt the spread of WMD by seizing them in transit. The PSI was first mooted by President George W Bush in May but was not officially launched until September.

Last week, a senior official from the US State Department confirmed that the PSI had "netted several seizures", although he refused to give further details.

President Bush and Tony Blair had praised Libya's decision to give up its WMD and allow international inspectors to oversee their destruction.

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Mr Bush described it as a "wise and responsible choice" while a statement issued by the Libyan foreign ministry said that the country had agreed "of its own free will" to destroy its unconventional weapons.

The PSI operation, however, added decisively to the pressure already brought to bear on Col Gaddafi by America and Britain as they prepared to attack Iraq in March.

One Cabinet minister said: "It demonstrates that change can be brought about by standing tough. There is no question that this change of heart by Gaddafi was brought about by the fact that the US and Britain were seen to be standing up to and called Saddam Hussein's bluff."

The Travellers Club in Pall Mall, beloved of spy novelists and frequented by senior officers in the intelligence services, was the venue last week for the final breakthrough talks between MI6 and Libyan intelligence officials.

British immigration rules were discreetly changed to allow the Libyans to enter the country on visas. Three Libyan officials met a four-strong British team led by William Ehrman, the director general of defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office, and including two MI6 officers, to agree the text that would be read out on Libyan television on Friday night.

Mr Blair was forced to wait until the Libyan statement had been taken down by the BBC monitoring unit, translated and its contents checked to make sure they tallied with the agreed text before he was given the go-ahead to make his announcement in Durham during the 10pm news broadcasts.

The Government is hoping that the capture of Saddam, the collapse of the European Union constitution talks, and Col Gaddafi's commitment to surrender WMD will boost Mr Blair's standing with his own backbenchers.

"It has been a triple whammy and there is a sense of success at the end of this year," said a Downing Street official. "It is important domestically, but it is also important internationally."

At a PSI conference in Washington last week, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, reminded the 16 member countries - who include France, Germany, Italy and Japan in addition to Britain and America - that the threat to global security extended beyond North Korea and Iran, the focus of recent pressure from Washington over their nuclear programmes.

"While PSI participants agree that North Korea and Iran are of particular concern, we know that our efforts cannot be confined to just any one or two countries alone," Mr Wolfowitz said.

Libya has long been in American sights over its acquisition of WMD. In June, John Bolton, the under-secretary of state for arms control and international security, warned that the regime was exploiting the suspension of United Nations sanctions after the Lockerbie trial.

"Since the sanctions were lifted, Libya has been able to be more aggressive in pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Libyan agents are trying to acquire dual-use technology. That is very worrying," he said.

The Libyan foreign ministry announced yesterday that it had already sent a team to Vienna to begin talks with the International Atomic Energy Authority, the UN nuclear watchdog.

The official Libyan news agency, Jana, last night quoted Col Gaddafi as declaring that his statement on WMD was "a courageous step which deserves the support of the Libyan people".